The real problem with the Cali/TX rule discrepancy is really that TAD follows UIL rules. Is that really necessary? Does it lose certification if it does? While trying to balance out competition in Texas (it does not), it leaves us somewhat hindered when competing at the national level. And honestly, I don't think that rule is to blame for us not beating with California for championships- studying individually and with your teammates at home doesn't constitute practice, and that's where most of the heavy lifting gets done. I think it's the breakdown of time in-between meets.

I'm real excited for this year, I think the competition in Texas is just getting better and better with each year and more topics like this happening.

The real problem with the Cali/TX rule discrepancy is really that TAD follows UIL rules. Is that really necessary? Does it lose certification if it does? While trying to balance out competition in Texas (it does not), it leaves us somewhat hindered when competing at the national level. And honestly, I don't think that rule is to blame for us not beating with California for championships- studying individually and with your teammates at home doesn't constitute practice, and that's where most of the heavy lifting gets done. I think it's the breakdown of time in-between meets.

I'm real excited for this year, I think the competition in Texas is just getting better and better with each year and more topics like this happening.

It also has very little to do with the UIL and after school practice regulations. It has more to do with TEA and the way we set up our classes / programs with many rules and regulations versus essentially no regulation and oversight. I've looked at these schools webpages and looked through their course catalogues, it's interesting how there is very little information about Academic Decathlon in any of these. I have ex-students go to school with ex-Cali AD students and they do a lot of talking.

This is a national competition with a lack of national standards. That needs to change. And I do disagree with why that's why we can't compete. I think we can compete, my team last year beat ECR at the honors and scholastic levels, we were not competitive because of varsities. But when you are able to do some of the things that some of these schools can do, which Texas cannot, it does give certain states advantages.

TAD chooses to follow UIL rules, but we all have to follow TEA rules. If TAD decided to pull out of following UIL rules, schools would drop AD like a hot potato. As far as I know all programs (whether they are officially UIL or not) follows UIL rules. But this is really not the issue, the issue is with TEA and the limits on structuring our programs during the school day.

Every School, every state has obstacles to overcome. Just identify your obstacles and chip away at it the best you can. I feel my team has studied about the most they could have while maintaining sanity and grades in other classes. We have a dedicated clas for AcDec - thats good, we dont have "D's" and teachers are relunctant to even give "C's" in order to avoid parent complaints - thats our obstacle. Our Debate Team pulls some great kids away, and Debate is probably saying AcDec pulls some good kids away. Band is basically a carpet bombing operation of a talent field I could glean from if Coppell didnt nee dto be State Champs in Marching band every year.

Anyway - Rockwall competition in October - Is the newly coached 7 Lakes Team and CDO going to be there?

Every School, every state has obstacles to overcome. Just identify your obstacles and chip away at it the best you can. I feel my team has studied about the most they could have while maintaining sanity and grades in other classes. We have a dedicated clas for AcDec - thats good, we dont have "D's" and teachers are relunctant to even give "C's" in order to avoid parent complaints - thats our obstacle. Our Debate Team pulls some great kids away, and Debate is probably saying AcDec pulls some good kids away. Band is basically a carpet bombing operation of a talent field I could glean from if Coppell didnt nee dto be State Champs in Marching band every year.

Anyway - Rockwall competition in October - Is the newly coached 7 Lakes Team and CDO going to be there?

We have a new grading scale, with no D's anymore, like you guys. I asked TAD if we can grandfather old D's as one grade point. Haven't gotten an answer yet.

How long have you been dealing with the "no D's" grade scale? Ours just started this past January.

We have 28 final trying out for the team, so 21 noobs. I think they're pretty balanced across the categories, so they should be a good group. I heard something about another houston meet working in parallel with rwall, I think at pland but not so sure.

Every School, every state has obstacles to overcome. Just identify your obstacles and chip away at it the best you can. I feel my team has studied about the most they could have while maintaining sanity and grades in other classes. We have a dedicated clas for AcDec - thats good, we dont have "D's" and teachers are relunctant to even give "C's" in order to avoid parent complaints - thats our obstacle. Our Debate Team pulls some great kids away, and Debate is probably saying AcDec pulls some good kids away. Band is basically a carpet bombing operation of a talent field I could glean from if Coppell didnt nee dto be State Champs in Marching band every year.

Anyway - Rockwall competition in October - Is the newly coached 7 Lakes Team and CDO going to be there?

We have a new grading scale, with no D's anymore, like you guys. I asked TAD if we can grandfather old D's as one grade point. Haven't gotten an answer yet.

How long have you been dealing with the "no D's" grade scale? Ours just started this past January.

That would make it extemely more difficult to find varsities. Many of my varsities in the past have lived in "D" land. Would you say it has caused more people to get Cs or Fs. If it's Fs then you should be fine, if not better off.

Every School, every state has obstacles to overcome. Just identify your obstacles and chip away at it the best you can. I feel my team has studied about the most they could have while maintaining sanity and grades in other classes. We have a dedicated clas for AcDec - thats good, we dont have "D's" and teachers are relunctant to even give "C's" in order to avoid parent complaints - thats our obstacle. Our Debate Team pulls some great kids away, and Debate is probably saying AcDec pulls some good kids away. Band is basically a carpet bombing operation of a talent field I could glean from if Coppell didnt nee dto be State Champs in Marching band every year.

Anyway - Rockwall competition in October - Is the newly coached 7 Lakes Team and CDO going to be there?

We have a new grading scale, with no D's anymore, like you guys. I asked TAD if we can grandfather old D's as one grade point. Haven't gotten an answer yet.

How long have you been dealing with the "no D's" grade scale? Ours just started this past January.

That would make it extemely more difficult to find varsities. Many of my varsities in the past have lived in "D" land. Would you say it has caused more people to get Cs or Fs. If it's Fs then you should be fine, if not better off.

Another TX-CA disjoint, because if a kid fails in TX they can't compete.

Well we have no 'D's" and I know some of my Scholars would accept a 'D' in some courses since they are still passing- so maybe some of them would be Varsity.

Also the number grade is also therefore diff as far as I understand. My kids with a 90-100 is an 'A' whereas a scale that allowed for "D's" is 93-100. So possibly, just possibly some of my Honors may have been Scholastic.

But really its just a situation we need to overcome just like other schools have obstacles to overcome.

My real problem is how we have inflated grades. Teachers do not have empowerment, principals try to run screen but parents simply plow thier way through and mingle in classroom operations/assignments too much.

This is why I feel we have more 'C's instead of 'F's' - teachers welcome a trash heap of pain if we fail a tudent - its almost like you need your own legal team to defend your case.

We do have good support and a core group of kids that think AcDec is a prestigious program to be involved in. As many of you also have, there are many kids that are NOT on the competative team. These are a cool bnch of kids that will fight to stay in the class even though they are not part of the team that goes to regionals and state.

I would love to have a Junior Varsity team - not octathlon but like it that includes Jrs's and Sr's

Seconded! I have a group of kids every year who do not make our competing team--kids who have been in ACADEC for two, three, and sometimes four years. They are good kids, but due to a variety of reasons (overstretched, doing too many other things, taking care of younger siblings at home, behind a younger "stud" player who is not going to lose his/her spot in the rotation) they never make the final team.

Here's how I work around this issue: everyone in our program gets to compete at our district tournament in November. So, if a school has 6 kids or 40 kids, all of them get to compete at district. The only event this does not work for is the Super Quiz Relay, where we only have 9 kids from each school compete; otherwise, everyone gets to do everything. It's worked out fairly well over the years. After November, I narrow down the team to the top 12 or 14 kids, and I take them to whatever "Invitational" tournament I can get them to. We've been to various out-of-area locations in our state for these practice tournaments: Kingman, Sierra Vista, Round Valley, and Prescott, and I usually try to take two teams worth of kids. So, there are ways to get your non-competitors the fun, grueling experiences that they miss out on by not making your final nine!

As far as grade inflation goes--don't get me started! Trying to give a senior the "F" they deserve (and have worked all year so hard for) is next to impossible.

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After 24 years of coaching at South Mountain I decided it was time to leave my school and district. I wish you all the best; please enjoy what you do.

Every School, every state has obstacles to overcome. Just identify your obstacles and chip away at it the best you can. I feel my team has studied about the most they could have while maintaining sanity and grades in other classes. We have a dedicated clas for AcDec - thats good, we dont have "D's" and teachers are relunctant to even give "C's" in order to avoid parent complaints - thats our obstacle. Our Debate Team pulls some great kids away, and Debate is probably saying AcDec pulls some good kids away. Band is basically a carpet bombing operation of a talent field I could glean from if Coppell didnt nee dto be State Champs in Marching band every year.

Anyway - Rockwall competition in October - Is the newly coached 7 Lakes Team and CDO going to be there?

CDO and the newly coached John Paul II will be there as will my varsities of dubious quality. I think we'll be hurting at that position this year. Our best varsity recruit became a scholastic with this last semester of grades.

Every School, every state has obstacles to overcome. Just identify your obstacles and chip away at it the best you can. I feel my team has studied about the most they could have while maintaining sanity and grades in other classes. We have a dedicated clas for AcDec - thats good, we dont have "D's" and teachers are relunctant to even give "C's" in order to avoid parent complaints - thats our obstacle. Our Debate Team pulls some great kids away, and Debate is probably saying AcDec pulls some good kids away. Band is basically a carpet bombing operation of a talent field I could glean from if Coppell didnt nee dto be State Champs in Marching band every year.

Anyway - Rockwall competition in October - Is the newly coached 7 Lakes Team and CDO going to be there?

CDO and the newly coached John Paul II will be there as will my varsities of dubious quality. I think we'll be hurting at that position this year. Our best varsity recruit became a scholastic with this last semester of grades.

Seven Lakes will not be there, but Cinco Ranch will be hosting a similar Houston tourney, they will be there for that, along with Taylor, Pearland, and others.

JPIIHS will be at Rockwall. Just got official transcripts and eyeballing them, too tired from moving to actually sit down and calculate them. Plus, at this point I can look and get a sense.

10 varsities20 scholastics5 honors

We've got about 12 incoming 9th graders, which I have not seen transcripts from them. Unless there is a Jon Xu hiding in that bunch (which there are 3 kids very strong and we are very excited about), that's going to be our team to try and unseat Eberhard from his Octathlon reign of terror!

Another TX-CA disjoint, because if a kid fails in TX they can't compete.

Unless it's an AP, Pre-AP, or Pre-Calc class.

But last I checked, a failing grade in Pre-AP Pre-Calc still made you ineligible...yay Texas...

Actually, with Pre-AP/AP classes, you're allowed to have one failing grade as long as it's above a 60. For example, I could be passing all of my classes except Pre-AP Pre-cal. But if I have a 63 in that class, I'm still eligible. But if I was failing Pre-AP Pre-cal AND AP Government with 62's, then I would be ineligible.

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"And you thought us Varsities were illiterate!"Tad WaltersJ. Frank Dobie High School '11 VarsityLoyola University- Naw'lins Class of 2015

Another TX-CA disjoint, because if a kid fails in TX they can't compete.

Unless it's an AP, Pre-AP, or Pre-Calc class.

But last I checked, a failing grade in Pre-AP Pre-Calc still made you ineligible...yay Texas...

Actually, with Pre-AP/AP classes, you're allowed to have one failing grade as long as it's above a 60. For example, I could be passing all of my classes except Pre-AP Pre-cal. But if I have a 63 in that class, I'm still eligible. But if I was failing Pre-AP Pre-cal AND AP Government with 62's, then I would be ineligible.